In April 2021, UConn’s Center for Clean Energy Engineering hosted Dr. Reza Javaherdashti who presented an enriching seminar titled, “Management of Corrosion and Microbial Adhesion on Solar Panels” for UConn’s Center for Clean Energy Engineering. Dr. Javaherdashti has more than 20 years of industrial and academic experience, and he has spent more than 5,000 hours teaching others about corrosion management and microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC).

Dr. Javaherdashti’s seminar served as a training course to introduce the audience about corrosion and microbial adhesion on solar panels. He explained how corrosion and microbial adhesion build up over time, and how this negatively effects the efficiency of solar panels. Bacterial settlements is a serious issue and can cause up to an 11% decrease in efficiency in just 18 months. Furthermore, the annual costs of corrosion impacts all industries more than the annual costs of natural disasters, and estimated cost of losses due to soiling is $4 billion by 2022.

Thankfully, researchers such as Dr. Javaherdashti have been working to find solutions, such as anti-soiling coatings for the solar panels. There are several different kinds of coatings, and they can increase energy efficiency and help mitigate the effects of corrosion and microbial adhesion.